Moth to the Flame (3 page)

Angrily she brushed the tears away.

She'd cried for David when she read her mother's letter, telling her that he was dead. (She'd been in Australia at the time, working on a sheep farm.) She'd cried for him on the plane over. She'd cried for him at his funeral. She'd cried for him as she re-read his letters about how unhappy he was at St Bede's. Cried as she read how Dr Gareth Lacey was driving him to despair. Cried all those dark, lonely,
bewildered
nights after his funeral.

It was time to stop crying now.

She got out of the tub and rubbed herself vigorously, leaving her body glowing healthily all over. Next she rubbed her head vigorously with a hand towel, which was all her short hair needed to dry it, then walked into the bedroom. She slipped on a fresh pair of plain white panties, and walked to the wardrobe. There she reached in and drew out her favourite dress. It was pale lilac, shot through with silver thread, and had delicate spaghetti straps that left large portions of her shoulders and back bare. Since she'd not long returned from the Australian Outback, she still retained the last golden gleam of a light tan. Against such skin, the pale lilac and silver contrasted sharply. The dress had a definite nineteen-twenties' style, with a fringe at the hem that swayed with every movement of her body. The simple neckline cunningly hugged her bra-less breasts, but the material was thick with silver thread only very subtly hinting at the nipples beneath. She reached for a comb and ran it though her hair, which was silky clean from the shampooing, smelt of gardenias, and gleamed a rich, deep, gold.

Her face needed very little make-up, but she added a touch of blusher, just to accentuate her cheekbones and jawline. A hint of silver over her green eyes transformed them into silver-lined emeralds, and a touch of slightly
plum
coloured lip-gloss to her full lips provided a feast for male eyes. No man would know what to look at first.

She smiled. Good. No jewellery. None was needed. All she had to do now was wait.

*          *          *

Sin-Jun met her in front of the green baize door of the SCR dead on time. As she slipped out of her coat, Davina heard him gulp. When he pushed open the door, the noise level hit her like a physical blow. She never had liked walking into a crowded room, even though, by now, she should be used to it. Most people seemed to think of her as a party animal.

Slowly, bit by bit, the noise level dropped into dead silence. Sin-Jun beamed as the faces turned their way. ‘Ah, here we are . . . er . . . Miss Granger.'

Davina glanced around the assembly. From her level-eyed gaze, not one of the people there would ever guess at the agonies of shyness she'd had to overcome in her teenage years.

‘This is Dr Fletcher, our Senior English Literature Fellow.' Sin-Jun politely introduced her to the first of many, and suddenly the worst was over. The noise began to hum politely again. Davina smiled at a tall, ginger-haired man, who shook her hand, and raised an eyebrow at the firmness of her grip. ‘I've
read
all your work of course, but I'm a Metaphysical Poetry man myself,' he smiled at her, instantly putting her on to more solid ground. She could talk poetry with anybody—even the best that Oxford had to offer.

Davina smiled. ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . .' she murmured the famous quote from John Donne, which had been hijacked by Ernest Hemingway, with so much notable success.

And so it began. Davina began to talk to Dr Fletcher about John Donne's famous conversion to Catholicism. Others eavesdropped openly. People circulated. Drank. Nibbled canapés.

Somehow, during that first conversation, she learned that the other English Lit. Fellow was currently away sick, and also that Dr Lacey was an avid fan of hers. From there, she learned that Dr Lacey was a widower of some years' standing, and that he'd rowed for the Oxford Boat Race team, back in his student days. He'd been educated right there at St Bede's, apparently, and had no current amour. ‘He's right over there, talking to Rex Jimson-Clarke, a Theology Fellow,' her helpful companion finished obligingly. Following the direction of Dr Fletcher's pointing finger, Davina saw two men, holding the ubiquitous sherry glasses, talking under a massive reproduction of the St Bede's coat of arms.

One of them was tall, easily over six feet,
with
dark wings of hair that swept down across a high intelligent forehead. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. There was something about the way he stood, an air of allure about him, that had Davina's skin itching. It was nearly a year since she'd broken up with Jax, her last boyfriend, and—she'd been celibate ever since. Now, something about the dark, handsome stranger had her body reminding itself of the fact.

Resolutely she turned her attention to the man next to him. He was a good decade older, portly, beaming-of-face. A bit like a teddy bear. Davina's lips twisted as she contemplated the enemy, then she quickly untwisted them. She simply couldn't afford to give away her true feelings this early on in the game. She turned to smile up at Dr Fletcher. ‘I know it's early days yet, but I'd really like a word with Dr Lacey. As the resident modern poetry expert, I was hoping . . .'

But before she could achieve her goal, Sin-Jun chose that moment to tap his glass with a spoon. Amazing that that tiny ringing sound could stop the conversation of a roomful of people in mid-flow.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. As you know, we're gathered together tonight to welcome our latest Honorary Fellow to St Bede's.' Everyone glanced her way, from the third-year Scholar in English, who was dying to ask Davina about a rather obscure line in one of her lesser-
known
poems, to the Emeritus Professor in Oriental Studies, who was soon to see his ninetieth birthday.

‘Davina Granger, one of our most celebrated modern poets, has been commissioned to edit an anthology of modern poetry. St Bede's has been lucky enough to attract Miss Granger into our hallowed halls for the duration of Hilary Term, whilst she writes her foreword for this project, and selects her choices. I'm sure our excellent English section in the library will be seeing much of her.'

There was a ripple of genuinely excited applause. Especially from the librarian, who was positively salivating.

‘I have no doubt her choices will be cosmopolitan, insightful and, I daresay, controversial.' There was another ripple of even more excited applause.

Davina smiled vaguely and wondered, cynically, how many of them were actually interested in the project, and how many of them just wanted to know if what the newspapers said about her affair with Jax Coulson was true.

Jax Coulson was Hollywood's current favourite, and he'd recently given a statement that his four-year-long relationship with the English Poetess Davina Granger had come to an end because she'd been too wild for him.

‘Ladies and gentleman, I'd like to propose a
toast—to
Davina Granger. Who, as I'm sure you know, has recently been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature.'

There was a huge barrage of applause.

Davina had heard she'd been short-listed for the most prestigious prize of all, on the day after David's funeral, and had hardly taken it in. She'd had other things to think about. Like, why her brother had committed suicide . . . ?

Besides, she didn't rate her chances of actually winning the Prize as very high. She was still young. Still female. Still too controversial to be seriously considered. But, in an environment like this, she realised that it was regarded as a very real honour indeed. She'd have to remember to play it for all it was worth and use it dazzle Dr Gareth Lacey. She was willing to use any and every weapon at her disposal in order to destroy the man who'd destroyed David.

As the applause died down, and a second-year Exhibitioner in English plucked up the courage to sidle up to her with a copy of her third book of poetry and a pen, she watched the portly, round figure of Dr Gareth Lacey as he talked to the tall, extremely good looking academic beside him. She signed the book, talked to the student about her desire to start a really meaningful literary magazine, and casually wandered over to her target. Long before she got to them, of course, both men stopped talking and turned to look at her. The
staid
surroundings of the SCR highlighted her unique and exotic beauty, and both men were openly dazzled.

Surprisingly, it was the tall, handsome man beside Dr Lacey who first caught her attention. As she got closer, she could see that he had large, stormy-grey eyes, thick-lashed, and startling in one of the most handsome faces she'd ever seen. A square chin beneath chiselled lips that looked wide and mobile and quite, quite sexy. She swallowed back a sudden pang of desire. Now was not the time for that. But the next instant she noticed that he had such long, sensitive hands, and had a sudden image of those hands on her body. Touching her. Caressing her. She blinked, surprised by the swiftness and intensity of the feeling. Her body actually tingled, where she imagined his fingers . . .

Angrily she dragged her eyes from him. It was the other man she needed to concentrate on. The enemy. Fortunately for her, there was nothing the least sexually attractive about him. Round, red-faced, he looked like somebody's idea of a human version of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Funny how outward appearances could be so deceptive.

She remembered David's last despairing letter to her, describing this man as a monster in human form. A jealous, manipulative, sarcastic, spiteful presence in his life.

She'd been disturbed by the sheer force of
her
usually placid brother's prose. She'd written back, advising him to ask to be assigned to another tutor.

Such realistic, prosaic advice. Such useless, inadequate, uncaring advice. If only she'd known how desperate David was. How desperate this man had made him.

She was aware of Dr Fletcher's ginger-haired appearance beside her and took a deep calming breath. She had to remember that she not only had to fool Dr Gareth Lacey himself, but also his contemporaries and colleagues. Nobody must realise she was Nemesis in their midst. A goddess of retribution.

‘Ah, Gareth, I'd like to introduce you . . .' Just as they reached them, the round teddy-bear-like man moved slightly forward, revealing a dog collar. Davina blinked. What the hell . . . ? ‘Gareth, meet Davina Granger. She's most anxious to talk to shop.'

The tall, dark haired man moved a pace forward.

She felt the nearness of him like the touch of a balmy breeze. The handsome face looked down into hers. The grey eyes looked fathomless, like a storm-tossed ocean, and as they moved over her, taking in the eyes, the mouth, the dress, they caressed her like a wave from the Atlantic.

She felt cold. But exhilarated. Drowning, but alive.

Davina felt the world around her give a
strange
kind of lurch. A weird tilting on its axis.

‘Davina,' he said. And smiled.

The voice matched the eyes. There was the power of the ocean in that voice too. A fathomless tone that touched some part of her and set it quivering, like the chord of a violin.

This was not good, Davina thought.

This was not good at all.

CHAPTER THREE

Alicia Norman arrived back at Oxford Station nearly five hours after leaving it, feeling cross, vaguely depressed, and just a little hurt.

She'd written to her mother last week to tell her she was coming back to the family home in Stratford-upon-Avon for the weekend. But when she'd arrived, it was to find that her father was in the Shetland Islands, interviewing a hermit-like author who'd agreed to give an interview for the first time in fifty years, and her mother in France, on a five-star holiday-cum-cordon-bleu cookery course. Even her brother, the country's leading drama critic, who had a self-contained studio at the large, sprawling Tudor mansion that was the Norman family residence, was in London to see the premiere of the latest glitzy musical.

Alicia had not been surprised so much as
weary
at the wasted journey. If only someone had phoned and let her know. Some homecoming!

She sighed as she hefted her holdall on to her shoulder. It was nearly fully dark when Alicia stepped through the main entrance to St Bede's, and made her way to her room in Webster. Like most Oxford students, she'd probably ‘live out' for her second year, taking rooms in town somewhere. She'd then be assigned another room in college for her final year, when exams would be sat.

As she made her way to her room on the top floor, she was already beginning to shrug off the disappointments of the day. To all outward appearances, Alicia Norman, with her wealthy, influential and literary-minded family, was an obvious candidate for Oxford, but she was also basically a shy girl, who still felt a bit wide-eyed and lost amidst Oxford's cosmopolitan splendour. She had, however, found a good friend in the girl who was rooming next door to her, Emily White, a gregarious, out-going girl from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Luckily for Alicia, Emily had very quickly seen through the charade of pretty little rich girl, to the dreamer with shy personality which lay beneath, and had automatically taken Alicia under her wing. No sooner had Alicia got in and dumped her case on the floor than the door burst open behind her. The girl who
erupted
through it was tall, ginger-haired and wildly waving a hockey stick. Her watery blue eyes widened. ‘Oh it's you,' Emily panted. ‘I thought you'd gone home for the weekend. When I heard someone moving about in here I thought you had burglars.'

Alicia laughed. ‘I did go home for the weekend. But no one was there . . .' Her explanations trailed off as she spotted a movement behind her friend's shoulder in the open door way. Her eyes widened, then she blushed. Vividly.

Emily had not been alone, it seemed. She'd always had a succession of boyfriends, which had at first surprised Alicia but now only amused her. Yet it still made her feel embarrassed about her own virginal state, when Emily so obviously had the modern-woman scene down pat. And the latest of Emily's men was . . . well, frankly he was gorgeous.